v Derby County (h) - 15/3/22

[Admiral Nelsen]

42 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Khadra’s not doing himself any favours at the moment. He’s really lacking in football intelligence. I remember when Matty was here at first, he was another one who held onto the ball too long at times. 6 months with Souey and the penny had dropped and he was on the way to becoming the brilliant all around striker he later turned into.

Ton Finney told a story about when he was a young player. He was always trying to beat the extra man and losing the ball. One of the trainers got another player to stand 30 yards away and said to Tom “ You reckon you can beat me in getting the ball over to Jimmy over there, shall we have a small wager  ? “ Tom said “ Yes I’m on , I’m pretty sure I can “ . So the trainer said “ On the count of three, one -two-three- go “. Before Tom had gone 4 yards dribbling the ball the trainer had just passed the ball to the other player and said “ I win “.

 

Thinking all the way back to the Sheffield United game at Ewood, I remember thinking at the time that Poveda was much more deserving of the praise that came his way than Khadra. I know he scored, but he gave the ball away so often and just seemed to really lack any respect for possession with some of his runs. 

 

I think he's got a bit better at that, and his flashes of quality along with his pace make him a useful player, but needing to be our main attacking threat has really exposed him in our recent spell. As a defender, having to deal with Brereton but also having to think about someone with Khadra's pace must be a nightmare. But when you're relying on Khadra to make the difference, you can't trust his decision making. 

[AllRoverAsia]

3 hours ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

More conjecture.

No, they are Mowbrays actual words.

[RoversTilliDie]

1 hour ago, jim mk2 said:

At the risk of stating the obvious, one has been out for the best part of 2 years and isn't anywhere near match fit and the other has been injured at a critical part of the season and will take a few games to get back in his stride even when he comes back

Hence, we were crying out for some more, decent strikers in January

If we had decent transfer funds we could have brought Messi to ewood.

[Nuttall is lost]

2 minutes ago, Geoff66 said:

If we had decent transfer funds we could have brought Messi to ewood.

No need as we had Tim Sherwood

[Exiled_Rover]

59 minutes ago, Silas said:

The thing about these rants against our own fans that always get me is how they ignore what has gone before. 

Focusing on "a poor first half" in their example. 

Those boos were a build up of days, weeks, months, and hours and hours of football, that had been mainly, absolutely awful.

 I don't agree with booing own players either, but if you're going to highlight it, then at least do it in a fair and realistic context. 

To claim fans were booing just because of one bad half, whilst simultaneously calling them "shortsighted" and "ignorant", is quite the position to take. As it shows a complete lack of understanding of the situation as a whole. 

Exactly.

What was the attendance last night, 11k? Go listen to the roar when we scored - I haven't heard Ewood Park that loud for a long time.

The people that still go to Ewood after a decade of the Venky's are the absolute hardcore. That first half was diabolical (we should have been 2-0 down). After scoring 3 goals in 2 and a half months of football, enough was enough.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Exiled_Rover

[RoversTilliDie]

1 hour ago, 47er said:

You are surely not one of the who think we shouldn't have signed a striker in January are you?

"With Bradley Dack back and Ben Breherton returning in a few weeks time"---season's running out in case you hadn't noticed!

In case you hadn't noticed were 4th in the Championship with Dack back in the team and Diaz back in a few weeks time.

[Bbrovers2288]

49 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I’m running out of patience with Khadra, what did we bust a gut in signing Hedges for ?

Bizarre signing in the first place , not good enough for our team but to buy him in a panic and then not play him is even more mowbray mayhem 

[RoversTilliDie]

1 hour ago, bluebruce said:

Well no, it will be because of all of them. And Brereton, Kaminski, etc.

Lord knows why you would credit Dack, who has only just come back and missed a penalty plus a sitter last game, or Johnson, who just isn't very good, before you'll credit Dolan, Khadra or Rothwell.

Probably were your football knowledge comes from Darwen give credit to the team not one ore two.

[Gav]

42 minutes ago, K-Hod said:

Is it the fickleness of our supporters?

Or is it being angry at the team playing terribly and voicing this opinion?

There are some weird folk knocking about who aren’t happy unless they’re criticising our fans. I’ve never known anything like it.

The fans were simply booing the shit show that was the first half, quite right too, awful 45 minutes. We certainly weren't booing the 2nd half, superb stuff, a bollocking from Mowbray and the introduction of Dack and the superb Sam Gallagher, who really set the tone when he came on and capped his performance with a great goal, brilliant stuff, the place was bouncing. 

 

[CambridgeRover]

After reading all the posts, Bradley's Johnsons posts and the bizarre Mowbray interview, weird things seem to be happening behind the scenes at Ewood.  Mowbray has definitely lost some seniority over the players imo. Seems like at half time the players themselves lead to the Bradley Johnson change, and good on them for that.

[RoversTilliDie]

4 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

Bizarre signing in the first place , not good enough for our team but to buy him in a panic and then not play him is even more mowbray mayhem 

He was probably rushed into signing Hedges pressure from the supporters who were crying out for strikers.

[SuperBrfc]

1 hour ago, davulsukur said:

I missed that, what happened? (Or appeared to happen)

Apparently, Travis shouted "why the eff have we got a defensive midfielder playing upfront" at Mowbray. That was on twitter from a fan sat near the dugout. If true, that's an indicator of what went on at half time.

[K-Hod]

4 minutes ago, Geoff66 said:

He was probably rushed into signing Hedges pressure from the supporters who were crying out for strikers.

Hedges who he had been chasing for over a year that isn’t even a striker?

[islander200]

7 minutes ago, CambridgeRover said:

After reading all the posts, Bradley's Johnsons posts and the bizarre Mowbray interview, weird things seem to be happening behind the scenes at Ewood.  Mowbray has definitely lost some seniority over the players imo. Seems like at half time the players themselves lead to the Bradley Johnson change, and good on them for that.

What has Johnson said?

[CambridgeRover]

1 minute ago, islander200 said:

What has Johnson said?

On Twitter someone said "I had a dream last night that TM played Brad Johnson as a False nine" and he responded saying "No dream buddy ...  absolute nightmare." Then on instagram he posted a gif of a headless chicken running around.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Sounds like there was a showdown at halftime. They should have bound and gagged Tony and put him in the kit skip.

[Gav]

10 minutes ago, CambridgeRover said:

After reading all the posts, Bradley's Johnsons posts and the bizarre Mowbray interview, weird things seem to be happening behind the scenes at Ewood.  Mowbray has definitely lost some seniority over the players imo. Seems like at half time the players themselves lead to the Bradley Johnson change, and good on them for that.

Did you watch that 2nd half performance? 

My mate sits near the tunnel and could hear the manager tearing strips off the team at H/T and good on him. If they don't like it they should perform better than they did in the first half, strolling around, looking disinterested, if they're sulking I couldn't care less either, they need to wake up realise what an opportunity this is.

This site likes to blame the manager for everything, the players haven't turned up in recent weeks, they need to own that and got told last night in no uncertain terms. 

[Exiled_Rover]

3 minutes ago, Gav said:

Did you watch that 2nd half performance? 

My mate sits near the tunnel and could hear the manager tearing strips off the team at H/T and good on him. If they don't like it they should perform better than they did in the first half, strolling around, looking disinterested, if they're sulking I couldn't care less either, they need to wake up realise what an opportunity this is.

This site likes to blame the manager for everything, the players haven't turned up in recent weeks, they need to own that and got told last night in no uncertain terms. 

https://media0.giphy.com/media/UTm86phGUMMQE/200.gif

[Angry_Pirate]

1 hour ago, Miller11 said:

Deja Vu…

Ignorant post there. Nothing fickle about any of it. The boos were also all aimed to towards 1 man, not the CDM in the 9, nor the one at RWB. 

People don't pay £450 a year on season tickets (plus parking, merchandise and match day spending - another few hundred pounds) to watch grassroots football.

My only complaint was they were chanting "Mowbray, sort it out" and not "Mowbray, time to go!"

He has always come across as spoilt, righteous and one to take the praise and pass the blame. Yesterday just looked like the first time he knew he couldn't do that. 

In 30 years of watching Rovers I've never seen us so late out of the tunnel at HT. EVER. So if you think Mowbray alone chose to make that formation change or those subs at half time... well, good for you. His demeanour for that 2nd half - post match - proved he was usurped.

[CambridgeRover]

4 minutes ago, Gav said:

Did you watch that 2nd half performance? 

My mate sits near the tunnel and could hear the manager tearing strips off the team at H/T and good on him. If they don't like it they should perform better than they did in the first half, strolling around, looking disinterested, if they're sulking I couldn't care less either, they need to wake up realise what an opportunity this is.

This site likes to blame the manager for everything, the players haven't turned up in recent weeks, they need to own that and got told last night in no uncertain terms. 

It is hard to give Mowbray credit for the win when he made the decision to put Bradley Johnson up front that got us into a losing position in the first place, more like half marks on that one.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

What a load of utter nonsense. Seems you are on the wind up today.

I thought the opinion at the time on Hedges was a bit underwhelming. Quite a few saying he wouldn’t be good enough, a few others saying he would be. There certainly wasn’t a groundswell of opinion clamouring to sign him.

[roversfan99]

5 hours ago, 47er said:

He gets things horribly wrong in the first half too bloody often though doesn't he?

Maybe he's getting old but he's bloody stubborn. Johnson and Gallagher---ridiculous.

Why are people to blame for criticising that? You have.

He deserves criticism for his first half tactics, 100%, I agree and join in with that. When I saw Johnson as a false 9 against a veteran Curtis Davies and against a Derby side who naively play the ball out from the back, I winced, it couldn't have been a more illogical tactic.

He also deserves praise for the proactive timing and the actual changes made to rectify those mistakes and ultimately we won the game.

Its more the side issues that I don't think warrant such focus. Touchline demeanour, interviews, questioning his passion or whether the players are playing for him, I just don't get it.

[Bbrovers2288]

8 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

He deserves criticism for his first half tactics, 100%, I agree and join in with that. When I saw Johnson as a false 9 against a veteran Curtis Davies and against a Derby side who naively play the ball out from the back, I winced, it couldn't have been a more illogical tactic.

He also deserves praise for the proactive timing and the actual changes made to rectify those mistakes and ultimately we won the game.

Its more the side issues that I don't think warrant such focus. Touchline demeanour, interviews, questioning his passion or whether the players are playing for him, I just don't get it.

You still wanting the same tactics , players shoehorned into positions or are you open to change now ie making mowbray actually earn his wage 

[BigUts]

Unless someone can prove that the players themselves made tactical changes and the relevant substitutions then I think we have to give credit to Tony on last night.

He 100% got it wrong with the initial line-up and it literally boggled my mind; but in the end changes were made and the result came good. I'm fairly sure that we can all agree Tony made the change to bring Giles on who crossed a beauty for Gallagher to head home - or are we saying Lenihan and Travis made that change too?

 

The virtue signalling on here and on social media is cringe. I of course would never do that because I'm an amazing supporter...😁

[roversfan99]

3 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

You still wanting the same tactics , players shoehorned into positions or are you open to change now ie making mowbray actually earn his wage 

Can you please point out when I have asked for the same tactics and specifically for "players shoehorned into positions?" In this very thread, I have been very critical of the bizarre tactics employed in the first half that thankfully were rectified quickly and proactively enough to see us to victory.

Mowbray I would suggest has earnt his wage thus far this season with us being 4th in the table as it stands. Doesn't mean that his management has been perfect.